“Where are you going to put up?” Maddison asked.
“At the Metropole, it’s amusing,” answered Mrs. West. “You must come in and dine with us.”
“Maddison hates big hotels,” said West.
“Big anything,” interjected Maddison, “except when Nature provides them. Most of men’s big things are vulgar failures. London, for example, you needn’t go farther.”
“Is a bad example,” rejoined West. “That example won’t prove your point: just the opposite. On the whole, London is a success; it’s the most comfortable, most luxurious and most beautiful city in the world.”
“And the most comfortless, most squalid, and most ugly,” said Maddison. “That’s where London is such a dismal failure; she’s just like a horse with an uncertain temper: one moment an angel, the next a devil.”
“Or you can put it another way and draw another conclusion; London has just that charm which belongs to a woman—you’re never quite certain of her—at least if she’s worth bothering about. It may be a scratch, it may be a kiss.”
“I don’t like your talking that way, Phil,” said Mrs. West; “you know you don’t mean it.”
“It’d be too stupid if we only said what we meant; most of us mean such commonplaces.”
Mrs. West picked up a magazine, and neither of the men feeling inclined to talk, the conversation dropped.